The Mexican Border Cities
258 pages, 6 x 9
Paperback
Release Date:01 Mar 1994
ISBN:9780816514410
The Mexican Border Cities
Landscape Anatomy and Place Personality
By Daniel D. Arreola and James R. Curtis
The University of Arizona Press
From Matamoros to Tijuana, Mexican border cities have long evoked for their neighbors to the north images of cheap tourist playgrounds and, more recently, industrial satellites of American industry. These sensationalized and simplified perceptions fail to convey the complexity and diversity of urban form and function—and of cultural personality—that characterize these places.
The Mexican Border Cities draws on extensive field research to examine eighteen settlements along the 2,000-mile border, ranging from towns of less than 10,000 people to dynamic metropolises of nearly a million. The authors chronicle the cities' growth and compare their urban structure, analyzing them in terms of tourist districts, commercial landscapes, residential areas, and industrial and transportation quarters.
Arreola and Curtis contend that, despite their proximity to the United States, the border cities are fundamentally Mexican places, as distinguished by their cultural landscapes, including town plan, land-use pattern, and building fabric. Their study, richly illustrated with over 75 maps and photographs, offers a provocative and insightful interpretation of the geographic anatomy and personality of these fascinating—and rapidly changing—communities.
The Mexican Border Cities draws on extensive field research to examine eighteen settlements along the 2,000-mile border, ranging from towns of less than 10,000 people to dynamic metropolises of nearly a million. The authors chronicle the cities' growth and compare their urban structure, analyzing them in terms of tourist districts, commercial landscapes, residential areas, and industrial and transportation quarters.
Arreola and Curtis contend that, despite their proximity to the United States, the border cities are fundamentally Mexican places, as distinguished by their cultural landscapes, including town plan, land-use pattern, and building fabric. Their study, richly illustrated with over 75 maps and photographs, offers a provocative and insightful interpretation of the geographic anatomy and personality of these fascinating—and rapidly changing—communities.
At long last there is a good book on one of the most-talked-about but least-understood regions of the world. . . . Arreola and Curtis utilize an engaging informal style of writing that makes the book a pleasure to read. . . . It is both a solid regional geography and, to some degree, an architectural and social guide to an area long ignored by serious writers. It is also a fun book.’—Geographical Review
‘The authors are to be congratulated for providing a wealth of detailed information about Mexican border cities.’—Annuals of American Geographers
‘Engagingly and clearly written . . . arguably the best book on Mexican border cities to date.’—Southwest Historical Quarterly
Daniel D. Arreola has lived and taught in three of the four U.S. border states and is currently associate professor in the Department of Geography and in the Hispanic Research Center at Arizona State University.
James R. Curtis was raised fifteen miles from the border in San Diego and is now associate professor in the Department of Geography at Oklahoma State University.
James R. Curtis was raised fifteen miles from the border in San Diego and is now associate professor in the Department of Geography at Oklahoma State University.
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